was to acquire Cork’s property. They’d offered him a lot of money, three-quarters of a million dollars. He’d turned them down. They’d offered him more, a full million this time. He’d declined the proposition. They’d made one more offer, one and a quarter million. He told them to take a hike.
Cork had an easement agreement with those who, before Parmer, had owned the property that stood between Sam’s Place and Aurora. This gave his customers access to the old Quonset hut along the road over the Burlington Northern tracks. But Parmer’s lawyers had wormed their way around the language of the agreement and, near the end of August, had chained off that access. Cork had gone to court, seeking a temporary injunction until the easement dispute could be resolved. The court had turned him down. He’d had so little business-only from boats on the lake-that he’d been forced to close Sam’s Place six weeks earlier than usual, cutting significantly into the cash that might otherwise have been available for legal fees.
From the beginning, Jo had overseen her husband’s interests. As the depth of Parmer’s pockets and the corporation’s resolve to string the proceedings out over years, if necessary, became more apparent, Jo had explained to Cork that it might be best to retain someone who was an expert in this kind of dispute and who could, perhaps, bring about a more expeditious resolution. She recommended a firm in Minneapolis. It was, she cautioned him, going to cost enormously.
Then Parmer had offered a compromise. Cork could keep Sam’s Place. They would build around it; in fact, they would incorporate the old landmark into their design. Cork simply had to sell them the remainder of his property at the last price they’d offered. He’d drafted his own response, told them to go fuck themselves, that he’d sell at no price, that only over his dead body would they ruin the shoreline of Iron Lake.
Jo had carefully pointed out that Parmer held all the cards, that if the lawsuit did, in fact, go on for years, and access to Sam’s Place continued to be effectively blocked, Cork would be forced out of business and they would have to find a way to shoulder a significant legal debt. She cautiously suggested that compromise might be possible.
Christ, of all people, she should have been behind him. Of course she was a lawyer, but she was his wife first. Compromise? Settle? Hell, fold up like a card castle, that’s what she wanted him to do.
Now he stood at the edge of the lake, looking south, where the shoreline met the sapphire reflection of the sky, thinking how he’d be tempted to kill to protect that unspoiled view.
“Howdy.”
Cork turned and watched a man emerge from the shadow of Sam’s Place and approach him over the gravel of the parking lot, smiling cordially as he came. He was tall and lean, sixtyish, a face like a desert landscape full of deep cuts and hard flats, with a couple of blue-green oases that were his eyes. He wore jeans, a tan canvas jacket open over a blue work shirt, and a Stetson that matched the color of his jacket.
“Morning,” Cork said.
The man stopped beside Cork and spent a moment admiring the view. Under the bright sun, the water sparkled. Along the far eastern shore, a ragged line of dark pines cut into the blue plank of sky like the teeth of a saw. The man breathed deeply and seemed to appreciate the smell of clean water and evergreen.
“Beautiful spot,” he said.
“I’ve always liked it.”
“Yours?”
“For the time being.”
“Lucky man. Business good?”
“In season,” Cork said. “Visitor?”
“Yep.”
“Fisherman?”
“Nope.”
“Fall color’s gone and hunting season’s basically over.”
“Depends on what you’re hunting.” He stuck out his hand. “Name’s Hugh Parmer.” The man’s fingers were long and steel-cable strong.
“Cork O’Connor,” Cork said.
“Figured.”
“Hugh Parmer.” Cork drew his hand back. “As in the Parmer Corporation.”
“That’d be me, son.”
“You’re trespassing.”
Parmer looked back toward the chained access and smiled. “Appears to me we’ve both stepped a little outside the law.”
“What do you want?”
“In general? Or right at this moment?” He kept smiling. “Just wanted to see for myself the parcel of land that’s holding things up.”
“It’s not the parcel that’s in the way. Look, Parmer, why don’t you just forget about this place and go back to your other developments? I understand you’ve got a number of them in the works.”
“Here and there.”
“Not here, not if I can help it.”
Parmer used the tip of his forefinger to nudge his Stetson an inch higher on his forehead. “My people have told me about you. Burr under the saddle, they say.”
“I don’t need people to tell me about you.”
“You sum up a man easy.”
“Some men.”
Parmer shrugged. “Me, I think everybody’s complicated, and I confess that sometimes I never do get the exact measure of a man.”
“In town long?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I’d prefer not to see you here again.”
“I understand. Much obliged, Mr. O’Connor.” He eyed the shoreline once more. “Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
Cork watched him cross the parking lot and hike the gravel access toward town. He watched until Hugh Parmer was a small figure well beyond the Burlington Northern tracks. Then he turned and promised the lake, “Over my dead body.” He picked up a rock and threw it far out and watched the ripples spread. “Over my dead and rotting body.”
THREE
Day One
He spent much of the day at Sam’s Place working on the only paying investigation he had at the moment. He made calls to several police departments in Tamarack County and in the three adjoining counties. He’d been hired by Covenant Trucking to look into break-ins at a couple of their depots, and he was trying to find out if there might be a more widespread pattern to the crimes, something he’d seen a few years before, when he was sheriff.
At three thirty he turned onto Gooseberry Lane and pulled into the driveway of his home, a two-story white clapboard nearly a century old. The house had been in his family since its original construction and was known in Aurora as “the O’Connor place,” a designation that would probably continue long after the last O’Connor was gone from it. A huge elm stood on the front lawn, with a rope scar visible on one of the low, thick branches where for years a tire swing had hung. A tall hedge of lilacs edged the driveway. In spring the fragrance from the blossoms was the next best thing to heaven, but now the bushes were a thick, unpleasant mesh of bare branches. Cork parked in front of the garage and went in the side door to the kitchen. He let Trixie, the family mutt, in from the backyard, where she’d been drowsing in the sun.
He was home five minutes ahead of Stephen. At thirteen, Cork’s son was just beginning to get some height and bulk to him. He’d always been a small kid, but in the last few months, the growth hormones had kicked in and Stephen was mushrooming. His coordination hadn’t caught up with his muscle development, and he was heart-
